


It's Been More a Prison than a Home

by Intrepid_Inkweaver



Series: Tales from Raven's Bones [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Anger, Autistic Character, Backstory, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Raven's Bones Guild, parental neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24874555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Intrepid_Inkweaver/pseuds/Intrepid_Inkweaver
Summary: It's more complicated than grief, sometimes.
Relationships: Zelkirae Morai & Sohlan Tinnir
Series: Tales from Raven's Bones [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799893
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	It's Been More a Prison than a Home

**Author's Note:**

> I've re-written this thing so many times, it's ridiculous. It's still not totally what I wanted it to be, it's a bit awkward and it doesn't flow right, and I didn't get all the nuances across that I wanted to, but I'm done with it. I'm pulling the 'fuck it' card. On to new things.

The sun shone brightly outside on the grounds, though it was the sort of brightness that occurs when winter’s cold is still lingering, it’s claws buried deeply in the frosted earth. Despite the chill, Zelkirae had seen the flowers beginning to show themselves through the mud on her morning walk through the grounds, and she had been able to say hello to the trees, who were just beginning to rouse from their season-long slumber.

There had been some tense feeling pervading the air in the house the last few weeks, and she had been unable to pinpoint it’s source, though she knew others felt it too. She had made note of Monsieur Tinnir’s (he preferred she call him Sohl, but she had never quite gotten used to it; she made the concession of calling him Monsieur Sohlan to his face) strange behaviour of late, as well. He had even gone as far as opting out of her morning walk that day, which was unusual. Even in more usual circumstances, when she had to skirt around her parents in order to get outside, he usually found some way to show up in the garden to accompany her.

Part of it might have been the impending return of Zelkirae’s parents. Though they were not due back to the estate for another three weeks, it seemed like such a short time after having all winter free of them. She had never been left to her own devices like this before, and it was exquisite. Some strange sudden sickness had struck her down the night before the family was to leave for their seaside manse in the south, and despite having taken her along regardless of the state of her health in the past, this time they had opted to leave her behind in the care of the skeleton staff staying at the estate. She had the feeling that Monsieur Tinnir had been the one to convince them to do so--she had witnessed him before convincing her parents of things she never would have thought possible in the past.

The sickness had passed the next day, not even very long after her parents had left, and for the rest of the winter, she’d been free to do as she chose for the first time in her life. Her parents’ personal staff had joined them in the south, and everyone that was left couldn’t care less if Zelkirae stayed out of the parts of the estate that were forbidden to her. And she had been able to spend time with Monsieur Tinnir without being sneaky about it.

It was strange to have someone she could call a friend. Strange, and new. She was still working out exactly how it worked. She felt like she had made progress, however, as she had become far more relaxed around him over the past couple of years. She often wondered, though, why he was so much different than all the others who had worked at the estate before. Why he cared enough to talk to her, to listen to her, to try to make her laugh. No one had ever tried to spend time with her like that before, except for her father’s father, who had passed away when she was only eight years old; and him she had seen only rarely.

Today, she had considered going out to work in the abandoned walled garden that she had claimed as her own many years ago, but it was still too cold to do much gardening, so she now planned to spend time in the library. She had research to finish before her parents returned and made getting a hold of the books she needed into a contest of thievery. Although, now, it might be easier than it had been in the past, as this past winter she had come to befriend the construct named Drys that served as the estate’s librarian.

As she entered the library, Drys floated out from one of the shelves and signed a happy greeting at her. Monsieur Tinnir had once confided that he found the faceless entity rather unsettling, but it didn’t bother Zelkirae any. She smiled at Drys and signed a return greeting before asking, “Is my research still up on the table, Drys?”

“Yes, my lady, it is still there. I have neither moved it, nor alphabetized your notes,” she signed in reply, a subtle disappointment leaking in through her gestures.

Zelkirae nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Is there anything else you might need, my lady?”

“Not right now, though I may need help locating additional books later.”

“Very well, I will be working nearby for when you need me.” And with that, she floated off to continue whatever it was that she had been up to before Zelkirae had entered.

She climbed up to the top floor of the library to a reading nook underneath one of the large ceiling windows that was letting in the bright early-spring sunlight. As she had requested, her pile of books and notes were still as she had left them on the table. The first few times she had ventured to study in the library, she had returned to find that all of her books had been re-shelved and her notes were in a neat alphabetized pile on the table. It had taken some time to sort them out.

Besides that, though, working in the library was one of the great pleasures of having freedom of the estate. Normally, she would have to steal in and take one book at a time to hide in her room. The only books she was _allowed_ to read were the ones chosen specifically for approved studies, and approved studies had only gotten more and more useless as the years went on. She was starting to think they were just trying to keep her occupied so she didn’t ask questions.

Her research now was into the mechanics surrounding the currents of nature magic, and how it was that druids were able to were able to tap into them. She had already discovered a technique that greatly improved the flow of magic into her spells.

As her quill was scratching at the paper, she suddenly caught the sound of footsteps approaching. Panic filled her, and she cast about for some way to hide both herself and her enormous pile of books. As her heart beat in her ears, and her hands began to shake, she was convinced her parents had found out what she was doing and were coming to--

“Zel, it’s only me,” said Monsieur Tinnir in a soothing voice, stepping quickly into full view. She took a few deep breaths and leaned her head down onto her hands for a moment to allow the panic to drain out of her, leaving her still shaky.

“I apologize, Monsieur Sohlan. I don’t know what came over me.” She lifted her head to give him a shaky smile. A familiar shadow passed over his face, and he rubbed at that one scale on his snout that always grew in crooked as he settled himself in the chair next to her. He often reacted with a general anger when things like this happened--not at her, never at her, but visible enough that she had once asked him why. His response had been, _I am angry because you have not been treated as a child should. Things aren’t meant to be like this--this isn’t normal. You deserve better._ She hadn’t really understood what he meant then, but over the past few years, she had begun to get an inkling.

He smiled at her and said, “I feel that if there was any danger of you being caught here, Drys would have helped you out. She’s grown quite fond of you.”

“I am fond of her as well,” Zelkirae answered, loud enough that the librarian who was hovering among the shelves not far away could hear her. Quieter, she said, “We have been living in the same household for seventeen years and until this winter we had barely interacted at all.” She shook her head. “How many more people like that are around?”

“Many.” He placed his hand over top of her’s. “And you’ll meet them, in time.”

Something about the look on his face as he said this prompted her to ask, “Are you alright, Monsieur Sohlan?”

He blinked and shook his head with a smile. “I’m fine, Zel. I’ve merely been getting lost in my head of late. I did come up here for a reason, though. You have a visitor down in the salon.”

Zelkirae shot upwards. “A visitor? Here? Did you not tell them that neither the Comte nor her husband are at home?”

He nodded calmly. “Yes, but this gentleman asked for you specifically. He said he has an urgent matter to discuss, and would not tell me what it was.”

Zelkirae began to pace back and forth and ran a hand through her loose hair. She hadn’t had to pin it up all winter. “He asked for me? Why would anyone do that? Um, I suppose I must get dressed to receive a visitor then. Uh, make sure Fellin makes him a cup of tea while he waits--or something else if if he wants it. Be sure he’s not bored, we have to make a good impression--”

Sohlan put a hand on her arm to stop her fitful movement. “I’ll stay in the room while you talk to him, if it’ll make you more comfortable.”

Zelkirae nodded wordlessly. “It would,” she finally managed to get out quietly. She took a deep breath and then looked at him and asked in a strained voice, “What happens if I make a mess of things and bring shame on my parents?”

Sohlan sighed and brought his other hand up to take hers in both his own. “First of all, you will be fine. You know all the protocol for receiving guests by rote, and you’ve done it a thousand times before--”

“Only as a secondary host, though. My parents were always here.”

“Then you have seen them receive guests a thousand times before. Second of all: Most people are not like your mother and father. Most people will not take offense at the tiniest mistake in your posture, or a slight misstep in your bow. People are far more forgiving than you have ever been led to believe. Contrary to what you have been taught, making a mistake while welcoming someone into your home is not actually enough to bring shame down upon your house.” He reached out and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “And you can trust me on that.”

She nodded and leaned forward into his chest. She still wasn’t used to embraces, but sometimes they were nice. When she pulled away, he put a finger under her chin and winked. “Chin up, eh?”

She smiled. “My chin is up.”

“Good. Now, go get dressed while I make sure our guest is kept entertained.”

Zelkirae made her way back to her chambers and sifted through her closet for something appropriate to wear. She had to match the time of the day, with the time of the season, with the formality of the occasion and she’d always found it frustrating. If you had clothes you liked, why couldn’t you wear them whenever you wanted to, instead of waiting all year to pull them out? She settled on a lavender dress that her father had chosen for her last year. She didn’t much care for it--the fabric was pretty, but the sleeves were annoyingly fussy and managed to get caught on everything they came into contact with. It was also itchy. She quickly pinned her hair up into one of the uncomfortable styles that were the current fashion.

As she made her way down the stairs, she could hear Monsieur Tinnir making formal small talk with their guest, and paused to take a deep calming breath before she entered the room. The visitor was a plain-looking elven gentleman with watery blue eyes and straight brown hair pulled back into an unadorned queue. The only splash of color in his otherwise grey, white and black outfit was a small red pin in the shape of a flower stuck into his cravat.

When she stepped into the room, Sohl said, “Ah, here she is now, Monsieur. May I introduce her ladyship, Zelkirae Morai.”

“Greetings Monsieur,” she said offering the elf the host bow. He returned it with the guest bow. “I am the mistress of this household while my mother and father are away. May I ask what I may title my honored guest?”

“My name is Kimrye Armir, and I hold no title, my lady. I am merely a trusted assistant to the Marquis de Samoigne, Cathan Zyanya.”

“It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance, Monsieur Armir. I apologize deeply for the delay in my arrival, but I had not been expecting to greet a guest today. I hope you were well cared for during your wait?”

“It was no wait at all, my lady,” he said offering another short, respectful bow to her. “Your servants were quite attentive, and I was happy to finish a cup of tea and admire your impressive decor.”

“I am glad. Please, sit,” she said, and as she settled herself primly on the couch, she took a soft breath of relief. With the rituals of greetings out of the way, things would get at least marginally less formal. She found she was actually now less nervous than she would have been had her parents been there. Even the stiff steps of the formalities seemed a little bit less oppressive without them here to judge her performance. She did feel as though they were about to appear from behind the curtains and reveal that this had all been some sort of test. She glanced around covertly, just to be sure, but the only other presence in the room was Monsieur Tinnir, standing stoically near the door, looking every inch the refined butler. He broke his act, though, to give her a reassuring wink.

“Now, Monsieur Armir, I have to ask what business La Marquis de Samoigne has with my family that could not wait for my parents to conduct it? As you must know, they are not in the habit of electing their daughter to do their important negotiations without them present.” The statement left a slightly bitter taste in her mouth, but she shook it off and folded her hands in her lap to keep them from fidgeting. Truthfully, it was not a surprise that her parents would have dealings with Marquis Zyanya, They had far-reaching and powerful contacts in every corner of Talepha, and even beyond. The odd thing was that the Marquis, or her retainer, rather, was willing to talk to Zelkirae. There were three possibilities here: she didn’t know that Comte and her husband were not home; or that they did not allow their seventeen year old daughter to conduct business for them; or she was purposely going behind Zelkirae’s parents’ backs for reasons Zelkirae could not yet see.

Armir looked uncomfortable. “You were not aware that the Comte and her husband were staying the past week with the Marquis while they negotiated with the crown.” It was a statement, not a question, and his tone of voice made Zelkirae’s eyebrows furrow.

“My mother and father have had little time to send messages of late,” Zelkirae responded slowly. “Considering they are due to return home in three weeks, it is quite possible it merely slipped their minds.” In truth, the last message from them had arrived shortly after they’d left, and had been for Monsieur Tinnir. It had been a curt command to ‘keep Zelkirae out of where she doesn’t belong, and make sure she does not slack on her studies’. They did not ask after her health, nor if she had recovered well from the sickness she’d been struck with. There had been no messages from them since.

Armir let out a breath and looked down at his hands, before sadly bringing his eyes back up to meet her’s. “I am very sorry to be the one to have bring you this news, my lady.”

Zelkirae clenched her hands and asked in a strained voice, “What news, Monsieur?”

“After spending the week in their negotiations with the crown, Your mother and father were traveling home from the Marquis’s estate. They never arrived, and two days ago their carriage was found in a clearing in the woods. It appears there was some sort of attack, and your parents were killed.”

It took a couple seconds for the words to register properly. When they did, she wasn’t sure what the knot of emotions that raised up in her chest consisted of, but the most obvious was disbelief. “My father is one of the most powerful spellcasters in two countries, and my mother hasn’t been bested in hand-to-hand combat since before she reached adulthood. If you are implying that they were taken by bandits--” Zelkirae said, unable to stop herself from letting scorn slightly color her voice. If there was a game being played here, she would not be party to it.

The only emotion that appeared upon Armir’s face, however, was sympathy. “Not at all, my lady,” he replied gently. “Whoever staged this attack clearly had it planned out to the tee, and had some uncommon magics at their disposal. The forest was reduced to ash for several yards around.”

“So it was a magical attack? You have not mentioned their bodies. What was the state of them? Were they recognizable? How do you know it was them, and not a forgery?” It was not a question for polite company, but Zelkirae had forgotten about protocol for the moment, a prospect that normally would have terrified her.

Armir’s lips twisted at the distasteful question, but he answered, “Neither the carriage nor your parents’ bodies were touched by the flames, nor were there any other marks on them at all. As I said, there were some uncommon magics in the hands of these attackers. We are sure of the identities of the bodies--they are not forgeries. The Marquis had them checked quite thoroughly for any sort of concealing magic.”

Zelkirae leaned back in the couch and sat in silence, staring at her hands for a few seconds, her mind spinning. Quietly, she asked, “And what about their carriage driver, and the horses? Were they killed as well?”

Armir sighed. “Neither the horses nor the driver were with the carriage when it was found. We have suspicions that she was involved with the attackers.”

That seemed highly unlikely. All of her parents’ personal servants were loyal to the point of self sacrifice, and were treated very well for it. Zelkirae didn’t say so, though. She continued to sit in silence, trying to parse out what it was that was happening right now. The knot in her chest only got more inscrutable the longer she tried to untangle it, and the knot of intrigue outside herself was no less tangled. She knew little of her parents’ political dealings. She knew there were many that would want them dead--she had overheard that much. She wasn’t even entirely convinced they were, in fact, dead, and not hatching some elaborate scheme with the Marquis.

She could feel Armir’s eyes upon her, watching her carefully. He was likely expecting some kind of emotion, some outpouring of grief or anger at their killers. But she felt neither of those things. She suspected that even were she to completely believe that they were dead right now, she still wouldn’t feel them. She wasn’t sure what that said about her.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced up at Sohlan above her. He asked Armir, “Did you bring their bodies home to us, Monsieur?” Zelkirae hadn’t even thought to ask that.

“Yes, They are waiting to be transferred to your crypt, in the wagon attended by my servant.”

“May we see them?”

“Of course.”

Armir stood up to lead them outside in the cold early spring sunshine, but Sohlan held her back. “How are you doing with this?” he asked softly, clearly concerned.

She hesitated before answering. “I’m…confused. I don’t know what to think. I have yet to be convinced.”

A pained look flit across his face, and he said, “I’m here with you, no matter what, you know that?”

“I know that,” she answered, and found, to her surprise, that she did know that. It was odd feeling, being sure that someone would be there supporting you through whatever might happen. She pushed it to the back of her mind to puzzle over later.

Outside, Fellin was helping who must have been Armir’s servant move the shrouded bodies from the back of the cart. The Morai estate had no crypt, as it was family’s tradition to be cremated and have the ashes spread out in the woods. There was a clearing far out on the grounds where funerals were held, and until then, the bodies were stored in an underground chamber beneath the house.

“Open their shrouds, if you please, Viavaan,” said Armir. Viavaan nodded and did so, and moved away to stand back near Fellin. Zelkirae took a step forward, and then hesitated. Something in her rebelled against this. There was surreality to the moment that she couldn’t pin down. It felt like she was standing inside a painting, a large painting of which this was only one of the scenes. It felt like pieces falling into place--although, if they were the right places and the right pieces, she could not say. Sohlan touched her arm, and the moment passed. She went forward and looked at her mother and father.

There was nothing strange looking about them. They appeared to be sleeping side-by-side, her mother’s white hair mixing in with her father’s black. They looked the same as they did they day they had left the estate, with barely a farewell to their illness-stricken daughter. She could see the tiny knife scar upon her mother’s chin, and the burn on her father’s left-hand knuckle. When she reached out to touch their cold skin, she could sense no magic beyond the simple preservation spell that the Marquis’s people had placed upon them.

A memory pushed to the front of her mind--one from when she was so young that it could have been a mere fancy. She could remember walking in the garden on a sweet summer’s day, in between her parents, swinging from their hands. She remembers them laughing, and smiling at her when she spoke, and she remembers how her mother gently chided her for picking a flower, but her father thanked her for it and tucked it into his hair anyways.

For all she knew, it could have been a dream, but she’d clung to it never-the-less. She’d spent so long hoping it was real, and that whatever had made them love her then was still there. She’d thought, _I can make them proud if I just work at it hard enough. I can be enough for them._ She never had been, though. And now they were dead and her only good memory of them was probably false.

She clenched her hand so hard her nails dug into her palm and she stepped backward. She couldn’t identify what she was feeling now any better than she’d been able to a few minutes ago, but now it was looming on all sides, suffocating. Sohlan placed a hand on her back and startled her out of it. “Zel?”

She opened her mouth to speak and couldn’t, so she shook her head and walked up out of the chamber. She could hear Sohlan in the background speaking to Armir, but she didn’t linger to hear what he was saying.

* * * *

Sohl had been able to take one look at Zel and see that she was in conflict, and going to need time to process this. As she made her way up out of the chamber, he turned to Armir with all the solemn formality of a good butler and said, “The Lady Morai is going to need some time to herself. I hope that you intend to stay the night before returning to the Marquis’s estate? I can very quickly have rooms made up for you.”

“That would be agreeable. Viavaan would be willing to help the household servants prepare for the funeral, as well, if that is needed. I know that the estate is running on a skeleton staff for the winter.”

“That would be much appreciated. I assume the letters have been sent, informing the necessary people of the the Comte and her husband’s deaths?”

“They have. All that is left is to set the date and send the invitations.”

Sohl nodded and turned to Fellin. “Have two guest rooms made up for Monsieur Armir and Mx Viavaan. I will show them up to salon to wait for you.”

Fellin nodded to Sohl and bowed to Armir before turning to leave. Viavaan bowed to Sohl and said, “I will join him, Monsieur.” and followed, so that Sohl was left to escort Armir up to the salon on his own.

One of the other servants came in with tray of sandwiches, and Sohl said, “I hope that you will not take this as an affront, Monsieur, but I feel that I must go to check in on Lady Morai. She has had a great shock today, and I feel she is need of comfort. Your guest room will be ready for you shortly, and dinner will be served at seven o’clock. You may choose to come down to the dining room, or to take it up in your chambers. Fellin is at your disposal if you need anything, or if you would like a tour of the house or the grounds.”

“I do not take offense at all, Monsieur Tinnir. I understand completely and stand by your decision.” Armir gave him a bow that was technically more respectful than what Sohl’s station warranted.

Surprised, as he’d first taken the man to be pompous and dull, Sohl quickly returned his bow. When he turned to leave, however, Armir reached out to grab his elbow. He asked quietly, “Will the young lady be alright? I have heard from my Lady Marquis that she is emotionally fragile. And she has so little in the way of family now. I have three daughters of my own that I would hate to be as alone as Lady Morai is right now.”

Sohl carefully kept his face from showing distaste at the lie that Kirasenne and Zellye had perpetuated to explain why it was that they kept their only daughter so isolated. He answered, “Lady Zelkirae is far stronger than her parents ever gave her credit for. She will get through this. And as for family, she may not have blood relations, but she at least has the unconditional support of her household. We will care for her as best we can.”

Armir nodded. “I am glad to hear that she is not alone. Please offer her my sympathies once again, and tell her that if there is anything at all that I can do for her, I am at her service. I am sure that Marquis Zyanya feels the same.”

Oddly touched at the frank sincerity in Armir’s voice, Sohl replied, “I will be sure to relay that to the Lady.” and bowed out of the room.

Sohl went to his own quarters and collapsed down into a chair. He’d been expecting this for months now, but it didn’t make it any easier. Lying to Zel, even by omission, was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He knew she’d noticed his tense behavior the past couple months, but she’d never asked about it, because it would have been impolite. Relying on her heavily ingrained social conventions when he had been trying to teach her how to loosen up felt like just one more betrayal.

When he’d first been approached by his current employers, this is what he’d wanted. He’d hoped to hasten along the assassinations of the Comte Morai and Lord Khaish. He’d been grieving, and filled with rage, and too young to think clearly about it--only nineteen. He’d grown in the four years since, and he could see now that getting involved with people he knew next to nothing about to get revenge on people he was no longer even certain had been at fault for his parents’ deaths had been a mistake.

That was not to say that Kirasenne Morai and Zellye Khaish were good people. They were very far from it, actually. They were certainly culpable in a great many other crimes. Kirasenne had almost certainly had her parents and young sibling murdered, and then had covered it up by burning an entire district of the city of Talepha.

He’d met them shortly after taking the job with his employers--how they’d managed to get him the job as the Comte’s butler so quickly, and without any questions asked was a puzzle he’d never quite figured out. The Comte and her husband were impressive, to be sure. Kirasenne, with her cool dark skin, long, think white hair, amethyst eyes and the smile of a viper, so quiet and unchallenged; and Zellye, no less beautiful than his wife, with his silky black hair that fell past the middle of his back pulled over his shoulder and sharp black eyes so at odds with his warm and easy smile. They were known for many things, one of which was their beauty. They were not known, however, as parents.

People didn’t speak of little Lady Zelkirae Morai because few knew of her. The ones that did whispered all kinds of versions of the story that she was not well, she could not handle interacting too much with other people. Even Sohl, whose job was information and who was very good at gathering it, had only known this.

She was thirteen when he’d met her, and she’d looked younger. In contrast with her parents, Zelkirae was awkward, somewhat clumsy, and some might describe her as ‘plain’ were it not for the fact that she had inherited her mother’s remarkable coloration. Her speech was clipped, and too formal, like a badly rehearsed recitation, and she avoided eye contact. Even then, though, he’d seen a spark of rebellion in her eyes when her parents looked away from her. It had reminded him heavily of his own younger sister, and had been enough for him to take an interest in her.

It seemed that no matter how many lessons in protocol and etiquette she was put through, she would never achieve her parents’ effortless charm, and she was often berated for it. She was scolded for not making eye contact, criticized for not holding the correct facial expression, and rebuked for every tiny mistake she might make. She took all of this in silence with a carefully cultivated neutral expression, while it was happening, but he had often heard her weeping in her room afterward.

Whatever her parents had wanted in a child, she wasn’t it. And they let her know it frequently.

She was lonely, carefully isolated not only from her peers, but from everyone else as well. Anyone that interacted with her outside her parents’ presence had to approved by them first. Why, he’d never been able to discover. Befriending her had taken time and patience, but he’d eventually been rewarded by watching her steadily grow more relaxed in his presence, and he’d finally seen her smile, and even laugh. He found out more about her all the time, such as her love of knowledge, her penchant for stealing books from the library for research, or the fact that she had taught herself how to speak to plants and animals, and had learned an impressive amount of druidic magic for someone her age with no tutoring.

She was seventeen now, and he’d done his best to show her that the world was not as cruel as her mother and father had made it out to be. He should have taken her away, if she would have agreed to it (and he feels she would have). Maybe they could have found his sister if she was alive, and made a home somewhere. Iyan would have loved her as much as he did, he knew. But he’d stayed because his employers kept asking for more information, always more. He’d grown complacent, nearly forgetting the end goal that he had wanted at the beginning.

He doesn’t know what it was that set his employers off finally, after all these years. The most obvious was the mysterious deal Kirasenne and Zellye were brokering with the Talephan royal family. His information on that had been scarce, so if it was, his employers must have had others working on it. He’d gotten the letter calling for the Comte and Lord Khaish’s assassination in late fall. All he had to do was ensure Zel was not with them when the time came.

He’d brewed a potion and mixed it in with Zel’s food the day before the family was set to travel to their winter home, inducing an unpleasant, but ultimately harmless sickness in her, which allowed him to exercise his considerable charm (both magical and otherwise) on her parents to convince them to leave her at the estate. In spite of knowing what was going to happen, and the guilt of lying to her, Sohl had seen a change in Zel over the few short winter months that had made him endlessly proud. She had started speaking to more of the house’s staff, and had grown greatly in confidence. She was more animated and more relaxed and far less prone to panicked silence. It made him regret ever more that he had never attempted to take her away.

Now her parents had been assassinated, and he really had no idea how it would affect her.

He sighed and caught himself rubbing at that damn scale on his nose again. He snorted and a spark of lightning snapped through the air. He really was out of sorts if he couldn’t keep that under control. Finally he pulled himself up from the chair and grabbed Zel’s favourite book of Gaeilar poetry that he’d recently had re-bound for her, and made his way up to her quarters.

She wasn’t up there, but he hadn’t really expected her to be. He’d merely figured it would be easiest to look there first. The lavender dress she’d been wearing was in a pile on the floor as though it had been torn off in frustration and left to lay where it landed. Indeed, when he picked it up, there was a tear in the neckline. He laid it on the bed for one of the chambermaids to retrieve. The fabric might go to make something different. He left the book of poetry upon her pillow for her to find later.

The place he actually expected Zel to be was a walled garden far out on the estate grounds. It had been abandoned for a generation--even the groundskeepers left it to it’s own devices. Zel had discovered it when she was quite young--long before Sohl had arrived--and had been using it as a private retreat ever since. Here she practiced her druidcraft, cared for the plants and animals, and just generally could be herself. She had hesitantly invited Sohl to come and see it two years ago, and he had been so touched by her willingness to share her private space with him that he’d nearly missed just how much work she’d put into it. This garden was far healthier and far more vibrant than any of the others on the grounds, even the ones that got the most attention from the gardeners.

It was here he found her, sitting on an old bench near the run-down shrine to Selune she had cleaned up and re-painted, dressed in a pair of old trousers and a shirt that was too big for her, which she had likely pilfered from one of the household servants at some point. Her hands were palms-up on her lap and covered in dirt. It looked as though she had been furiously weeding out one of the flower beds. She didn’t say anything when he approached, so he quietly sat down next to her and waited for her to speak.

After a few minutes of silence, she said, “Have you ever noticed how few animals there are on this estate, Monsieur Sohlan?”

He thought for a moment. “Now that you mention it, I have noticed how quiet it is here. There seems to be no birdsong or night life.”

She nodded. “There’s some kind of disturbance in the area. Magical in nature. The animals don’t like it, so they tend to avoid nesting here. My garden here is better, though, or so they say.” She reached up as though to rub her neck, but saw her soil-covered hand and put it back down. “I was able to feel that there was something wrong with the flow of magic here when I was ten years old. I tried to figure out what was wrong on my own. My father caught me with the books and demanded to know what I was doing. I told him about it, and that I only wanted to help. You know, even he hadn’t noticed that there was anything wrong? I found out later that if it had been left without treating, a tear in the plane might have occurred.” She shook her head and swallowed. “I was punished for _two weeks_ after that for ‘stealing’ those books. When I was the one that alerted everyone to a potential catastrophe.”

An anger he’d never heard in her shook her voice now. He reached out and grasped her hand, ignoring the dirt that rubbed onto his scales. She grasped it back hard, and he could see she was suppressing tears.

“I was so happy when I first started doing magic _because I was a spellcaster like father._ I thought he’d be proud of me. And I worked and worked and worked at my spells to make them perfect so I could show him. But then that happened. And he didn’t _care_ that I had senses that were even more attuned than his. All he cared about was that I had taken initiative and tried to gain knowledge they didn’t want me to have. I don’t even know _why._ I never showed them.They never knew.”

For once in his life, Sohl was unsure what the right thing to say would be, so he stayed quiet, gently squeezing Zel’s hand to let her know he was there for her. After a minute, she asked, “How are you supposed to feel when your parents die?”

Caught off guard by the question, he floundered for a moment before answering, “There’s no one way to feel. It depends on the person and their relationship with thier parents.”

“I don’t feel any grief for them. At least…I don’t think I do. It’s all just… _anger_. I keep looking for some reason to grieve, but all I see are more things that make me angry. Things that didn’t even make me angry before. And now that I finally have that anger--they’re not even here for me to express it. And it goes around and around in a circle.” She pulled her hand from his and got down on the ground nearby and started pulling weeds again. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

Sohl knelt on the ground next to her and began to help her weed. “You have a right to your anger. And many would say that that anger is a good thing, even if it doesn’t feel like it. It means you’ve begun to realize that you deserve better, and that you can begin to heal. And you are allowed to express it. Scream. Throw some fire around. Weed.”

She stopped weeding and leaned back on her heels. “I feel like a terrible person because I’m not just angry. I feel _relieved_ that they’re gone _,_ ” she said quietly.

Sohl sighed and turned so he was facing her. He reached out and took her face between his hands. “You are not a terrible person. You are allowed to be angry, and you are allowed to be relieved. You are not bound forever to grieve for people who treated you the way they did. Parents are meant to love you and support you, encourage your interests and passions, comfort you when you feel sad or lonely. I only wish--” his voice broke here, “I failed you,” he started again. “I should have taken you away, and I’m so very sorry that I did not. You deserve to know that you are loved, and to know that you are good enough.”

Her face crumpled and he quickly pulled her into a hug and let her cry against his chest. They sat back on the bench for a while in the quiet until a bird landed in the large tree that Zel had claimed taught her how to tend the flowers.

“I don’t think I’ve seen that one here before,” she said quietly.

“Well, you did say the animals like your garden better than the rest of the grounds.”

“Did you see the crocuses coming up?”

“I did. They look like they’ll bloom beautifully this year.”

She nodded. “Yes. They will.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I particularly hate the ending, honestly.


End file.
